In iOS 13, you can share songs and watch movies with a friend, with each of you using your own AirPods. The new feature is called Audio Sharing, and it lets you instantly — and temporarily — pair a second set of AirPods to your iPhone or iPad. It’s like the olde schoole method of using a headphone splitter to plug two sets of headphones into one jack socket, only way more expensive and fancy.
Here’s how to use it.
Apple’s Reminders app gets a massive update in iPadOS and iOS 13. It’s no longer a joke app that needs a million taps just to set a notification time on your action item. We already know about the new layout, which splits tasks into Today, Scheduled, All and Lists, and we also know about the excellent new natural-language input, which makes typing a reminder as easy as dictating it to Siri.
But the big update also brings some other new features you likely haven’t heard about yet: Today Notifications and Type to Siri (right there in the Spotlight screen).
Look Around is Apple’s answer to Google’s Street View, and it’s about a zillion times better — if your area has coverage, that is. Look Around is just getting started, and covers very few places. Street View, on the other hand, is available for pretty much anywhere, including underwater, up mountains and on hiking trails.
Why is Look Around better? Well, it’s faster, for one. And it just looks nicer. The images are super-high-resolution and full-screen. Using it on a 13-inch iPad Pro feels like taking a virtual street tour of a neighborhood.
In iPadOS and iOS 13, you can edit videos just the same way you’ve always ben able to edit photos. You can crop them, rotate them, add filters and adjust their color. And — finally — you can simply save the edited version instead of spawning a copy every time you make a simple trim. No need for iMovie — the iOS Photos app can now perform radical edits to videos. This isn’t limited to the iPhones 11, either. You can do all this on any iPhone or iPad running iOS 13.
Check out the great new iOS 13 video editing features:
The trouble with modern technology is that anyone can try to reach you, at any time. Your boss can leave a passive aggressive email at the top of your inbox overnight, so you see it when you want to check personal mail. Anyone can send you an SMS or iMessage. And anyone with your phone number can spam you, any time.
Currently in iOS, you can block iMessage senders. But in iOS 13, you gain two new ways to keep stalkers, weird friends and over-sharing co-workers out of your digital life. Now you can block unknown phone callers and email senders.
iPadOS 13 brings some real game-changing new features, plus a lot of excellent comfort tweaks that make using it much easier. And iOS 13 is no slouch.
Today I’ll list my favorite new features in iOS 13 and iPadOS, along with a few changes I’d be happy to live without.
The Photos app in iOS 13 is now good enough that you may never need another app to edit your photos, for regular edits at least. Somehow Apple made the app even easier to use, and added some new features, while making existing features far easier to find.
For instance, Portrait Mode now gets its own tab; the automatic magic wand tool can now be fine-tuned (as can the built-in filters); and the crop tool now fixes perspective, and mirror-flips your photos.
Safari’s new “desktop-class” features are getting all the press in iPadOS, but the new download folder, and better website support aren’t everything. There’s also a new in-app settings panels with a ton of options — per-site text size, for example — and even a new font in the Safari Reader View. Let’s check it out.
It wasn’t until I installed iPadOS on my regular iPad that I realized how great iOS 13 is. It’s one thing to run it on an old, battered test unit, but a whole other thing to use it day to day. And, surprisingly, it’s the small features that make the biggest difference. The per-page view setting in Safari, for example. Or the new multi-app Slide Over panel. And, more than anything else, the new text-editing gestures, which are finally good enough to replace a mouse and a Mac.
Let’s take a look at how to use iPadOS 13’s new copy, paste, undo and redo gestures, plus text selection in general.
iOS 13, which launches today, focuses more on adding a range of incredibly useful features and tweaks rather than pursuing a bold, overarching new direction. For instance, Safari on iPad now functions as a full desktop browser, just like on your Mac. Another great addition is the redesigned share sheet, which includes a top row of one-tap buttons for easily sharing with friends via iMessage. If you’re curious about when someone shares their location how do you see it, iOS also introduces enhancements to location-sharing features, which you can learn more about here.
Or, in iPadOS 13, which ships at the end of the month, you can plug in pretty much any USB device and it will work. Hard drives, SD cards full of movies, anything.
So, while you’re waiting for the new version of iOS to install on your device(s), check out all the new iOS 13 features right here.
New subscription gaming service Apple Arcade is here1, and it looks like an incredible deal. For just $5 per month, everyone in your family gets unlimited access to dozens of exclusive games (with a free month-long trial to check it out). Even better for parents, there are no in-app purchases in Apple Arcade, so your kids won’t be begging you to buy more coins or whatever every five minutes.
However, they can still spend way too much time on games when they should be out playing with kilometer-zero, organic wooden toys, or pretending that old washing machine delivery box is a panic room. Thankfully, Apple’s own Screen Time feature already works with Apple Arcade, so you can restrict access to any and all games.
Whenever I open up the For You tab in the Photos app, every single “effect suggestion” is Brighten this Portrait Photo with Studio Lighting. Every single one. I’m not even exaggerating. And I’m never interested, because Studio Lighting, along with all the other Portrait Lighting effects, is junk. Now, though, with iOS 13’s new High-Key Light Mono effect, there’s at least one Portrait Lighting effect worth using.
Here’s why High-Key Mono looks great — and how to use it.
This week we check out Roland’s answer to the iPhone 11’s multiple cameras, turn mono to stereo with Haaze 2, see the new 1.1 beta of Pixelmator Photo, plus one more thing.
I love 3D Touch. I use it all the time. It’s one of the handiest shortcuts on the iPhone. And now, with the iPhone 11, it’s gone. But I don’t care. Why? Because Haptic Touch is almost as good. Even better, thanks to Apple’s switch to Haptic Touch, you can use all those 3D Touch features on the iPad.
The iPhone 11 Pro Max promises up to five hours more battery life than the iPhone XS Max that precedes it. That’s around a 33% increase1. This battery boost could come down to a more efficient OLED screen, a bigger or better battery, a more efficient processor, or — most likely — a combination of these factors.
But whatever the reason, this marks the first time iPhone battery life jumped so much in one generation. Usually, the iPhone sacrifices any excess battery life to get thinner or lighter. And yet the iPhones 11 Pro come in heavier and a hair thicker than their iPhone XS predecessors. What’s going on? Has Jony Ive’s reign finally ended?
What happened to the Apple Tag? Rumors pointed toward an imminent launch for Apple’s tracking-tile competitor, and what better place to announce it than along with new iPhones? But the iPhone 11 event came and went without the Tag.
Will we still see an Apple Tag this fall? I hope so, because it could be Cupertino’s most important product since the Apple Watch.
Are you running the iOS 13.1 beta? Right now, it’s pretty pretty much ready to use, for most people. But with the official release coming up soon, how do you switch from the beta to the official, regular version? The good news is that it’s easy. Here’s how.
During today’s big iPhone 11 event, Apple will show us its latest hardware and more. And, as always, you can watch the show live. We’re expecting to learn all about the new iPhone 11, or iPhone Pro, or whatever it’ll be called. Also expected is an update on the incredible new iOS 13, and perhaps another peek at — or evan a launch date for — the new Mac Pro.
Whether you’re watching on your Mac, your iPhone or iPad, or your Apple TV, we’ll show you how to tune in. You can even show up at an Apple store and watch it on the big screen!
Note: Cult of Mac will not be live-blogging the action — instead, you can follow along on Twitter, or join us in our IRC chat room for a watch party.
This week we listen to Apple Music in the browser, live on the edge with The Most Dangerous Writing App, lock up our notes in Bear, and schedule our messages to send later in Telegram. And more, etc.
Get the scoop on this week’s best new (or freshly updated) apps for iOS and Mac.
This is the new MicroLab from Arturia. It’s a USB MIDI keyboard you can hook up to your Mac, your iPad or your iPhone. It’s tiny — but how does it differ from the zillion other portable MIDI keyboards littering the pages of Amazon? Two ways.
One is that it has a bunch of clever design features that make it great for travel or small desktop setups. The other is that it has big, proper, velocity-sensitive keys, instead of the stupid junky keys on almost every similar MIDI keyboard.
After the release of iOS 13.1 beta 2, iOS 13 is probably good enough for you to install and use. I’ve been running the new iPadOS on an old test iPad since the very first version, and it has been glitchy all the way. But as of the latest developer beta, almost all of the problems have been ironed out.
So, is the iOS 13 beta really stable enough to install?
How much space do duplicate files take up on your iPad? In theory, they use no extra storage. Thanks to the design of the Apple File System (APFS) used on iOS and macOS, duplicating a file doesn’t actually create a copy. It just creates a reference that points to the original file on the disk.
But what about File Providers, and iCloud, and all that stuff? I decided to take a deep dive and find out if you can really make a zillion copies of a file with no penalty. The results were, to say the least, confusing.
One of the handiest features in iOS 13 appears to have been pushed back to at least iOS 13.2. iCloud Folder Sharing, which would have let many people ditch Dropbox entirely, has disappeared from the current iOS 13 betas. And that’s not all. Also gone is the ability to pin a file to save it offline. What’s going on?
For some of you, one of the main reasons to jump on iOS 13 right away is mouse support. You can connect any Bluetooth or USB mouse to your iPad, and use it pretty much like you’d use a mouse on the Mac.
You can even use a multi-button mouse. And guess what? You can assign all of those buttons to mouse functions. I’ve been using a mouse with my iPad on and off throughout the beta period. During that time, I’ve come up with a shortlist of the most useful mouse button features in iPadOS 13.
Recently, I’ve been using my old Mac more and more, even thought I’ve long preferred using an iPad for both work (writing) and play (making music, and all the other dumb stuff you do on a computer when you’re goofing off).
And It’s gotten me thinking. Why do I prefer the Mac for some tasks? And I mean, strongly prefer. I’m so used to using both iOS and macOS that it’s not a questions of familiarity. Nor is it that I’m trying to squeeze the Mac way of doing things into the iPad, and vice versa — a common problem for new switchers.
No, my preference comes down to two small yet fundamental differences between the iPad and the Mac. These two features are present on the Mac, and will probably never make it to the iPad. What are they?